The Moment
by moegrrl
Summary: i made a little backstory on how vivian and aster met. i do not own anything from "anyone but me". all rights to the creators and writers. just a fan. check out this web series at www.strike.tv and at


VIVIAN POV

Have you ever had a moment that you can live in forever?

I never thought I'd be able to answer something so trite. But I have...lived a moment that it seemed forever.

***

Even in a metropolis when you stay put long enough, you'll pretty much get a handle on everyone within your community, especially when you're boxed up daily with the same kids you've had play dates with since you've been in diapers. There were popular kids and notorious kids, but very few had just the right measure of popularity and notoriety that made them infamous. One of them is Aster Gaston.

Rich, beautiful, and brimming with charisma, I couldn't help but know about her like everybody else who've had at least a week in our school. She was something of a bad girl, but undeniably intelligent enough that it took her little effort to make up for coasting.

I know of her by reputation, but details were vague, and I wasn't gossipy enough to know. I just kept my head down and devoted myself completely to my first love: writing.

I'll always be in awe of the power of the written word, so even though I've penned plays sine I could grip a jumbo Crayola, I signed up for every journalism class in the hope of one day being the next Woodward or Bernstein.

It was in journalism class that I had "the moment". The one that I could live in forever, eternally content in that fraction of time despite the mind-boggling vastness of the entire human experience.

our teacher, who was newly minted, and had barely wiped the froth of a college keg party from his upper lip, began the school year by having us stand up and introduce ourselves to get-to-know-each-other. Honestly, he was the only complete stranger in the room, as most of us had gone through fear of cooties together.

I was absorbed in the curriculum, basically ignoring the others as they gamely stood one by one, secure in the thought that I couldn't possibly say anything that no one already knew about me, when the person sitting beside me stood up.

"I'm aster. I could say some BS about how I want to be Katie Couric when I grow up. Yadda-yadda. Or how I want to make the world a better place through the might of the pen. But the truth is I took up this class, 'coz I wanted to meet someone."

And the fat lady sang.

It was all over. I graduated from pubescent innocence so abruptly I didn't even know that I was holding my breath.

God, who was this creature? Blinding. Breathtaking.

I felt so lightheaded, I didn't even realize that I had stood up to introduce myself, and to this day you couldn't pay me to remember.

Harps were singing. Her gorgeous hair was haloed in mystical light.

Any other day I'd sneer at such romanticism, and flatly concluded that hallucinations had set in, and the glare of the fluorescents had seared my retinas. But I was self-aware enough to know what it meant when one Vivian McMillan, started thinking of harp song: I was head over heels, deliriously, helplessly, in love.

***

She was aster, and I was clumsy. it pained me to no end that here was this mesmerizing person that I wanted to know more about...but the words dry up, my palms sweat, and she was too divine that suddenly what I wanted to say was inane.

I'm not being full of it, when I say that inane is the last thing that I am. Neither, am I tentative. Uh-uh, not me. No born and bred New Yorker worth her salt could be called a shrinking violet. It's safe to say that this newfound shyness was alien territory for me.

"So, you're a reader, huh?"

This is not happening.

"hm?" brilliant, Viv, just brilliant.

"not that I'm saying you're an egghead or anything..." she stopped short, regrouped, and grinned winningly at me. "I meant, I think it's interesting...you reading all the time."

"uh-huh." aster. Aster is talking to me.

She nodded her head a couple of times, looking at me searchingly, probably wondering what possessed her to talk up this awkward person.

"Ok. Well, see ya around!" she said brightly, giving a small wave before she walked away, and me mentally kicking myself in the head.

God. Could that have gone any worse?

***

ASTER POV

"I'm telling you, break, she's not interested." I whined with a dejected shrug.

"aster." break said sternly "just give her some time. You have to worm your way into her heart. I'm telling you she's worth it."

He said it so earnestly, even my jaded self was charmed.

"Yeah, I know she's worth it. I just...I don't know how to get through to her. She's so intense, and I feel that I have to say something brainy to keep up."

"Tell me again what happened." Break said for the nth time.

"I don't think there's anything more to parse from our bit of conversation, but here goes...I said something like: 'you read huh', then she says: 'hm'. Just that. I don't know if it's a confused kind of 'hm', or an 'hm, could you be any more obvious kind of hm'." I blew a frustrated sigh, and ran a hand through my hair.

"Okay. Okay." Break nodded sagely.

"Then I called her an egghead..."

"Ooh." Break shook his head pityingly.

"But I backtracked! Swiftly, I backtracked, and I'm fairly sure I saved that one."

"riiiight."

"then I said that her, being a reader, was interesting...um, you know." I'm actually gesturing to save my narrative. I've never so much as fidgeted in my entire life. I am not a fidgeter. having to gesture to save myself was defcon 1 kind of bad.

"so, you basically told her that you've been stalking her this entire time?"

"what?! stalking? what?" talking with Break is often a surreal experience.

"well you told her that you've noticed her being a 'reader'. Break rolled his eyes and made air quotes. "You couldn't possibly have concluded that about her, being you've only been in one class with her...ever." He said slowly and meaningfully like I was a kindergartener.

"shit."

god. could that have gone any worse?


End file.
